Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid – prediction, team news and more
Barcelona prepare to host Atletico Madrid on Tuesday as they look to keep pace with LaLiga Santander leaders Real Madrid.
Barcelona will be looking to return to winning ways in La Liga when they continue their 2019-20 campaign against an in-form Atletico Madrid.
All eyes will be on Joao Felix on Tuesday night as the Portuguese wonderkid has just begun to find his feet in LaLiga. The 20-year-old moved for a whopping €126m to Atletico last summer and found the adaptation process to be challenging. He has looked in excellent touch since the restart and could be pivotal for Atleti’s hopes of a result at the Nou Camp.
The Spanish champions have drawn two of their last three in Spain’s top flight to hand the advantage to Real Madrid, but Atletico are on a run of four league victories in a row.
- Barcelona have won eight of their previous 11 matches in La Liga.
- Barcelona‘s league fixtures have featured an average of 3.28 goals per game this season.
- Atletico Madrid have found the net in each of their last ten league encounters.
- Barcelona have the edge going into this fixture as they haven’t lost a league game to Atleti in over three years.
- Their last six meetings in LaLiga Santander have yielded four Catalan victories and two draws.
Barcelona are in danger of losing significant ground in the race for the La Liga title but they can outline their credentials with a big win over Atletico Madrid.
Of their 21 wins in La Liga this season, 15 have come at home, where they have not lost in the league this season.
The only league fixture at home Barcelona have failed to win this season was their goalless El Clasico clash with Real Madrid back in December.
Diego Simeone has struggled to find a consistently dangerous attacking combination from the likes of Joao Felix, Alvaro Morata and Diego Costa, with Los Rojiblancos managing a miserly 41 goals in their 32 league matches.
That goal tally is the same as lowly Real Betis and inferior to Sevilla, Villarreal and Real Sociedad and they have particularly struggled on their travels, netting only 18 goals in their 16 matches on the road.
However, Barcelona have not been without their defensive deficiencies, conceding in six of their previous 11 home victories in La Liga and in a high-octane fixture, Atletico should be able to register a consolation goal.
Incredibly, the capital side have not actually won an away La Liga game against Barca since February 2006, which is an indication of the size of their task on Tuesday night.
It would be fairly easy to back a low-scoring draw in this match, but Barca are sure to be desperate to return to winning ways due to the disappointment of their result against Celta. We are expecting an incredibly tight match involving spells where Barca will suffer.
Atletico Madrid +0.5 (Asian) @ 2.09
